Insular Groups Research Articles

Island biogeography of the megadiverse plant family Asteraceae

The megadiverse plant family Asteraceae forms an iconic component of island floras including many spectacular radiations, but a global picture of its insular diversity is lacking. Here, we uncover the global biogeographical and evolutionary patterns of Asteraceae on islands to reveal the magnitude and potential causes of their evolutionary success. We compile a global checklist of Asteraceae species native and endemic to islands and combine it with macroecological analyses and a phylogenetic review of island radiations. Asteraceae have a global distribution on islands, comprising approximately 6,000 native island species, with 58% endemics. While diversity of the family on islands is lower than expected given its overall diversity, Asteraceae are the most diverse family on oceanic islands, suggesting an exceptional ability to thrive in isolation. In agreement with island biogeography predictions, native Asteraceae diversity increases with area and decreases with isolation, while endemism increases with both. We identify 39 confirmed island radiations and 69 putative radiations, exceeding numbers for other iconic insular groups. Our results reveal Asteraceae offer immense potential for research in ecology and evolution, given their close tracking of island biogeography expectations, large number of both species and radiations, cosmopolitan distribution, and numerous undiscovered radiations.

Ethno/racial affiliation, trust, and identification in higher education: the mediating role of perceived injustice in the classroom

The present study contributes to a vast body of empirical research on the importance of the sense of justice in education. It examines the mediating role of perceived injustice (grades and lecturer-student relations) in ethnic/racial differences concerning trust and identification. The focus is on an ethnically and racially mixed higher-education institution in Israel which provides a venue for the encounter of three distinct and otherwise insular groups of students: Ethiopian-Jews, non-Ethiopian Jews; and Arabs holding Israeli citizenship. The study argues that higher-education institutions' educational features may be conducive to fostering a sense of justice in the classroom, which ameliorates ethnic/racial rifts by promoting trust and identification. A sample of 700 Israeli university students was examined using Structural Equation Modeling. Findings partially support the study’s main argument.

О СОЦИАЛЬНОЙ ПРОНИЦАЕМОСТИ ГРАНИЦ МУНИЦИПАЛЬНЫХ ОБРАЗОВАНИЙ

The article investigates the intensity of social interaction between the population of different municipalities in Russian Federation. This interaction is estimated using user profile data from online social networks: a data source that grows more and more popular in population geography studies. We build a qualitative indicator of social interaction using data on the number of interregional friendship links for «VKontakte» social network users that live in different municipalities and have an open social network profile. We show that the intensity of social interaction is higher on the average for municipalities that share a common border. Social interaction intensity data is then used to characterize the permeability of municipality borders. We choose the least permeable borders among all border segments of municipalities in Russian Federation: those with the smallest transborder interaction intensity values and describe the social barriers that are revealed this way. We describe various configurations of these barriers and suggest hypotheses for the reasons why such barriers appear or do not appear. We also analyze several groups of socially insular groups of municipalities in the Khanty- Mansi Autonomous Okrug and the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug and suggest possible reasons for their insularity.

Union Dispossession of Labour Protection: A Paradox, in Two Legal Systems

Though the protections of employment law are usually not subject to waiver by the employee, some countries allow unions to negotiate to modify or abrogate then. This article looks at two: the United States and Germany. It points to a critical distinction between the legal capacity to make collective bargaining agreements having that effect in Germany as compared to the United States. Notwithstanding those differences, it argues that what their experience teaches in common is that such an opt-out can benefit employers by giving needed and mutually understood flexibility, and can benefit unions as institutions by making it advantageous for employers to bargain with them, but that considerable care must be taken when such license is legislated lest discrete or insular groups be dispossessed of a valuable right in a process that advantages employee coalitions that exclude them, or the union as an institution, at their expense. Public Goods, Dispossessive Law, Tarifdispositives Arbeitsrecht, Trading Material, ‘Sweetheart’ Agreements

Shortcomings of Phylogenetic Studies on Recent Radiated Insular Groups: A Meta-Analysis Using Cabo Verde Biodiversity.

Over the previous decades, numerous studies focused on how oceanic islands have contributed to determine the phylogenetic relationships and times of origin and diversification of different endemic lineages. The Macaronesian Islands (i.e., Azores, Madeira, Selvagens, Canaries, and Cabo Verde), harbour biotas with exceptionally high levels of endemism. Within the region, the vascular plants and reptiles constitute two of the most important radiations. In this study we compare relevant published phylogenetic data and diversification rates retrieved within Cabo Verde endemic lineages and discuss the importance of choosing appropriate phylogeny-based methods to investigate diversification dynamics on islands. From this selective literature-based review, we summarize the software packages used in Macaronesian studies and discuss their adequacy considering the published data to obtain well-supported phylogenies in the target groups. We further debate the importance of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS), to investigate the evolutionary processes of diversification in the Macaronesian Islands. Analysis of genomic data provides phylogenetic resolution for rapidly evolving species radiations, suggesting a great potential to improve the phylogenetic signal and divergence time estimates in insular lineages. The most important Macaronesian reptile radiations provide good case-studies to compare classical phylogenetic methods with new tools, such as phylogenomics, revealing a high value for research on this hotspot area.

Exploring Political Journalism Homophily on Twitter: A Comparative Analysis of US and UK Elections in 2016 and 2017

The tendency of political journalists to form insular groups or packs, chasing the same angles and quoting the same sources, is a well-documented issue in journalism studies and has long been criticized for its role in groupthink and homogenous news coverage. This groupthink attracted renewed criticism after the unexpected victory of Republican candidate Donald Trump in the 2016 US presidential election as the campaign coverage had indicated a likely win by the Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton. This pattern was repeated in the 2017 UK election when the Conservative party lost their majority after a campaign in which the news coverage had pointed to an overall Tory victory. Such groupthink is often attributed to homophily, the tendency of individuals to interact with those most like them, and while homophily in the legacy media system is well-studied, there is little research around homophily in the hybrid media system, even as social media platforms like Twitter facilitate the development—and analysis—of virtual political journalism packs. This study, which compares Twitter interactions among US and UK political reporters in the 2016 and 2017 national elections, shows that political journalists are overwhelmingly more likely to use Twitter to interact with other journalists, particularly political journalists, and that their offline tendencies to form homogenous networks have transferred online. There are some exceptions around factors such as gender, news organizations and types of news organization—and important distinctions between types of interactions—but overall the study provides evidence of sustained homophily as journalists continue to normalize Twitter.

Testing the island effect on phenotypic diversification: insights from the Hemidactylus geckos of the Socotra Archipelago.

Island colonization is often assumed to trigger extreme levels of phenotypic diversification. Yet, empirical evidence suggests that it does not always so. In this study we test this hypothesis using a completely sampled mainland-island system, the arid clade of Hemidactylus, a group of geckos mainly distributed across Africa, Arabia and the Socotra Archipelago. To such purpose, we generated a new molecular phylogeny of the group on which we mapped body size and head proportions. We then explored whether island and continental taxa shared the same morphospace and differed in their disparities and tempos of evolution. Insular species produced the most extreme sizes of the radiation, involving accelerated rates of evolution and higher disparities compared with most (but not all) of the continental groups. In contrast, head proportions exhibited constant evolutionary rates across the radiation and similar disparities in islands compared with the continent. These results, although generally consistent with the notion that islands promote high morphological disparity, reveal at the same time a complex scenario in which different traits may experience different evolutionary patterns in the same mainland-island system and continental groups do not always present low levels of morphological diversification compared to insular groups.

Multilocus genetic diversity and historical biogeography of the endemic wall lizard from Ibiza and Formentera,Podarcis pityusensis(Squamata: Lacertidae)

Two monophyletic sister species of wall lizards inhabit the two main groups of Balearic Islands: Podarcis lilfordi from islets and small islands around Mallorca and Menorca and Podarcis pityusensis from Ibiza, Formentera and associated islets. Genetic diversity within the endangered P. lilfordi has been well characterized, but P. pityusensis has not been studied in depth. Here, 2430 bp of mtDNA and 15 microsatellite loci were analysed from P. pityusensis populations from across its natural range. Two main genetic groupings were identified, although geographical structuring differed slightly between the mtDNA and the nuclear loci. In general, individuals from islets/islands adjacent to the main island of Ibiza were genetically distinct from those from Formentera and the associated Freus islands for both mtDNA and the nuclear loci. However, most individuals from the island of Ibiza were grouped with neighbouring islets/islands for nuclear loci, but with Formentera and Freus islands for the mitochondrial locus. A time-calibrated Bayesian tree was constructed for the principal mitochondrial lineages within the Balearics, using the multispecies coalescent model, and provided statistical support for divergence of the two main P. pityusensis lineages 0.111-0.295 Ma. This suggests a mid-late Pleistocene intraspecific divergence, compared with an early Pleistocene divergence in P. lilfordi, and postdates some major increases in sea level between 0.4 and 0.6 Ma, which may have flooded Formentera. The program IMa2 provided a posterior divergence time of 0.089-0.221 Ma, which was similar to the multispecies coalescent tree estimate. More significantly, it indicated low but asymmetric effective gene copy migration rates, with higher migration from Formentera to Ibiza populations. Our findings suggest that much of the present-day diversity may have originated from a late Pleistocene colonization of one island group from the other, followed by allopatric divergence of these populations. Subsequent gene flow between these insular groups seems likely to be explained by recent human introductions. Two evolutionary significant units can be defined for P. pityusensis but these units would need to exclude the populations that have been the subjects of recent admixture.

Introduction: Case variation and change in the Nordic languages

Shortly after arriving in Copenhagen five years ago, I realized what many linguists have long understood: the case situation in the Nordic languages is formidably complex. Of course, the broad outlines of inter-speaker (or, cross-linguistic) variation in Nordic nominal case inflection are well known. Within two major language families, (North) Germanic and Uralic, there are dozens of closely related language varieties. The Finnic and Sami languages of Uralic have adpositional case systems, while the North Germanic languages can be further subdivided into the Mainland and Insular groups, partially on the basis of their different case systems. The latter group, namely Icelandic, Faroese, and Älvdalian (which is spoken in a fairly isolated rural community in the interior of Sweden), has ‘rich’ inflectional case morphology on a range of elements comprising nominal phrases, including articles, determiners, demonstratives, nouns, pronouns, wh-words, and more. The former group, namely Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish, are ‘case-poor’, maintaining only a vestige of their historically rich case morphology on a subset of personal pronouns, which have Nominative, Oblique, and Possessive forms. Furthermore, certain varieties of Swedish and Norwegian retain vestigial Dative forms of clitic pronouns.

“There Are No Housewives on StarTrek ”: A Reexamination of Exit Rights for the Children of Insular Fundamentalist Parents

In this essay, Paula McAvoy addresses the problem caused by the liberal state's necessary tolerance of insular fundamentalist groups and the concern that children raised in such groups do not have a fair opportunity to evaluate their inherited beliefs. This tension comes to the fore around disagreements over schooling and requests for religious accommodation. Often, these requests are treated as straightforward dilemmas — either the state accommodates the group at the expense of the child's future interest in autonomy, or the state must use its power to coerce the group into compliance. McAvoy argues for a principled middle ground between these two views. Using William Galston's conditions for securing the right to exit (set out in his 2002 book Liberal Pluralism) and evidence from Anabaptist apostates, McAvoy shows that insular groups cannot satisfy these conditions. Consequently, when accommodation is necessary, the state must mitigate the foreseeable costs to children by enacting policies that “facilitate entrance” for those who later choose to exit.

Habitat selection by, and carrying capacity for, the Critically Endangered black-faced lion tamarinLeontopithecus caissara(Primates: Callitrichidae)

AbstractThe Critically Endangered black-faced lion tamarinLeontopithecus caissarahas a restricted distribution consisting of small mainland and island populations each with distinct habitats in coastal south-eastern Brazil. The conservation action plan for the species recommends translocation to increase population size and promote genetic exchange among threatened isolated populations, measures that require an understanding of habitat and resource requirements. We investigated habitat selection by the black-faced lion tamarin, comparing habitats and examining frequency of use by two insular groups and two mainland groups. Using this understanding of habitat preferences we were able to refine current estimates of the carrying capacity (K) for this species. Habitats preferred by mainland groups were swamps and inundated areas and secondary forest. Submontane forest was avoided, as were hydromorphic lowland forest and urbanized areas. Island groups used mainly tall lowland forest and arborealrestinga(forest on sandy soil). The finding thatL. caissaraavoids montane forest sheds light on its restricted distribution to low elevation coastal plains. An estimate ofKindicated c. 700 individuals, which could be increased to c. 1,500 with appropriate conservation management measures. Findings agree with the supposition that lion tamarins are typical of mature Atlantic forest, with little altitudinal variation but flexible in their use of successional stages. Future conservation management measures should account for differences in habitat use, selection and differences between island and mainland habitats.

Structure and species diversity of topical groups of mollusks in lakes of the Solovetsky Islands and Onega Peninsula, northwestern Russia

The main differences in the structure and species diversity of topical groups of mollusks between lakes on Solovetsky Island and continental lakes have been revealed. Insular groups are characterized by higher indices of species richness (the average number of species per sample) and density, with the level of dominance being decreased. In general, specific features of the insular territory impose limitations not only on the total species richness but also on the number of structural variants of topical mollusk groups, with the range of parameters of their species diversity being reduced against the background of sharp increase in the density of mollusk colonies. Insular topical groups of mollusks are characterized a certain set of species dominating in abundance.

Engaging the Leviathan: National Development, Corporate Globalisation and the Endorois' Quest to Recover their Herding Grounds

AbstractThis article examines in detail the recent landmark decision of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights in Centre for Minority Rights Development & Minority Rights Group (on behalf of the Endorois) v. Kenya. In particular, the article analyses the extent to which the Commission has given a new and more "African" life to indigenous peoples' human rights in the continent. While engaging in a juridical exposition of various rights germane to indigenous groups within the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, the article places this discourse in the context of globalisation whose (re)shaping of the state power has placed non-state corporations at the centre of development intervention with deleterious effects on insular groups.

Movements and habitat use of satellite-tagged false killer whales around the main Hawaiian Islands

ESR Endangered Species Research Contact the journal Facebook Twitter RSS Mailing List Subscribe to our mailing list via Mailchimp HomeLatest VolumeAbout the JournalEditorsSpecials ESR 10:107-121 (2010) - DOI: https://doi.org/10.3354/esr00258 Movements and habitat use of satellite-tagged false killer whales around the main Hawaiian Islands Robin W. Baird1,*, Gregory S. Schorr1, Daniel L. Webster1, Daniel J. McSweeney2, M. Bradley Hanson3, Russel D. Andrews4 1Cascadia Research Collective, 2181⁄2 West 4th Avenue, Olympia, Washington 98501, USA 2Wild Whale Research Foundation, PO Box 139, Holualoa, Hawai‘i 96725, USA 3NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center, 2725 Montlake Boulevard East, Seattle, Washington 98112, USA 4School of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences, University of Alaska Fairbanks, Fairbanks, Alaska 99709, and Alaska SeaLife Center, 301 Railway Avenue, Seward, Alaska 99664, USA *Email: rwbaird@cascadiaresearch.org ABSTRACT: There are 2 recognized stocks of false killer whales Pseudorca crassidens in the US Exclusive Economic Zone surrounding Hawai‘i, a small demographically isolated population around the main Hawaiian Islands and a larger offshore (‘pelagic’) population. Recent evidence suggests the insular population may have declined precipitously over the last 20 yr, and one possible contributing factor is interactions with offshore longline fisheries or other hook and line fisheries. To assess movements and habitat use, satellite tags were remotely deployed on individuals in 3 groups from the insular population and one from the offshore population. Although tagged off the leeward side of the island of Hawai‘i, individuals from the insular population regularly moved to the windward sides of the islands. Some insular individuals moved extensively and rapidly among islands, while other individuals remained associated with the island of Hawai‘i for extended periods before moving among the other islands. Comparisons of distances between tagged individuals indicated that individuals within groups disassociated and re-associated over periods of days, occasionally moving more than 100 km apart before re-associating. The offshore individual, tagged 123.8 km offshore, approached to within 62 km of land, inshore of the longline fishery exclusion boundary. The 3 insular groups moved a maximum of 83, 87 and 96 km offshore, respectively, indicating that the distance from shore cannot be used as a strict boundary between the populations, and that individuals from the insular population may overlap with the longline fishery. When combined with photo-identification the results suggest that boundaries between these 2 stocks should be revised. KEY WORDS: Longline fishing · Population boundaries · Group dynamics · Habitat use Full text in pdf format Supplementary material PreviousNextCite this article as: Baird RW, Schorr GS, Webster DL, McSweeney DJ, Hanson MB, Andrews RD (2010) Movements and habitat use of satellite-tagged false killer whales around the main Hawaiian Islands. Endang Species Res 10:107-121. https://doi.org/10.3354/esr00258Export citation RSS - Facebook - Tweet - linkedIn Cited by Published in ESR Vol. 10. Online publication date: February 09, 2010 Print ISSN: 1863-5407; Online ISSN: 1613-4796 Copyright © 2010 Inter-Research.

10.1007/s11184-008-1007-7

Fluctuations in the abundance of insular groups of sea otters on the Commander Archipelago are analyzed with regard to changes in meteorological conditions. The main factors responsible for the abrupt decline of the Bering Sea group between 2002 and 2004 are discussed. A statistically significant correlation has been revealed between fluctuations of sea otter abundance and the cycles of solar activity in the period since 1992. Changes in the age and sex structure of the insular groups of sea otters are evaluated.

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Cassagnaite, a new, V-bearing silicate mineral from the Cassagna mine, northern Apennines, Italy

Cassagnaite occurs at the Cassagna manganese mine (Eastern Liguria, Italy), filling fractures in braunite +quartz layered mineralizations together with piemontite. It occurs as very rare isolated prismatic to tabular {001} crystals, usually elongated along [100], and as entangled aggregates of a few crystals. Few aggregates consist of very small cassagnaite crystals (maximum size up to 0.05 mm) closely associated with much larger piemontite, quartz, and braunite crystals. The crystals are generally very small, with a maximum size up to 0.1 mm, golden brown in colour, transparent with vitreous lustre. The crystal structure, refined in the space group Cmcm with cell parameters a = 6.066(1) A, b = 8.908(1) A, c = 18.995(2) A and Z = 2, may be described as a layer stacking along [001] of a fundamental building block of composition [M1 2 (OH) 2 (SiO 4 ) 2 ] 4− that alternates with intersheets, randomly occurring in a ratio ideally 1:1, of type 1 [(Ca, Mn 2+ ) 2 SiO 2 ] 4+ and of type 2 (Ca, Mn 2+ ) 2 M2 2 (OH) 2 O 2 ] 4+ , where Fe 3+ and Mn 3+ populate 3/4 of the M1 site and Al the remaining 1/4, while V 3+ , Mg and Al occupy in nearly equal proportions the M2 site. The simplified formula, inferred from chemical analyses, structure refinement and crystal-chemical considerations, may be written as (Ca, Mn 2+ ) 4 (Fe 3+ , Mn 3+ , Al) 4 (OH) 4 (V 3+ , Mg, Al) 2 (O, OH) 4 (SiO 4 ) 2 (Si 3 O 10 ). From the composition of the “dominant” end-member of the complex solid-solution the end-member formula Ca 4 Fe 4 3+ (OH) 4 V 2 3+ O 2 (OH) 2 (SiO 4 ) 2 (Si 3 O 10 ) may be proposed for cassagnaite. So, cassagnaite may be classified as sorosilicate with insular and triple tetrahedral groups and belongs to the ardennite group in Dana’s classification.

Dynamics of abundance and population structure of sea otters, Enhydra lutris L., on the Commander Archipelago and activity of their migrations between Islands

Fluctuations in the abundance of insular groups of sea otters on the Commander Archipelago are analyzed with regard to changes in meteorological conditions. The main factors responsible for the abrupt decline of the Bering Sea group between 2002 and 2004 are discussed. A statistically significant correlation has been revealed between fluctuations of sea otter abundance and the cycles of solar activity in the period since 1992. Changes in the age and sex structure of the insular groups of sea otters are evaluated.

Courts and the marginalized: Comparative perspectives

Those landmark cases where courts have assertively defended the rights of poor, vulnerable, or insular groups—such as homosexuals, refugees, or indigenous peoples—even in the face of social hostility and indifference have generated considerable interest in the role of courts as protectors of the marginalized. What role can and do courts play in protecting the interests and rights of vulnerable groups? Why do some marginalized groups succeed in having their rights recognized by the courts, while others fail? What makes some judiciaries more activist and receptive to their concerns and others less so? The four articles presented in this symposium originated in an interdisciplinary workshop held in Santiago, Chile, in December 2005, which attempted to answer these questions. The focus of the workshop was on new democracies in Africa and Latin America, but participants also drew on the experiences of more developed and stable legal systems in Europe.1